The Modulightor Building is a commercial building in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The first four stories, designed by the architect Paul Rudolph and completed in 1993, were an overhaul of a 19th-century townhouse. The structure was one of the last designed by Rudolph in Manhattan before he died in 1997; unlike his other projects, the Modulightor Building was not particularly well-publicized, receiving little media coverage until the 2000s. The fifth and sixth stories, completed in 2016, were designed by Mark Squeo, an associate of Rudolph. The building's facade and the interior of the third- and fourth-story duplex (formerly occupied by Rudolph's partner Ernst Wagner) are designated as New York City landmarks.
The building was constructed for Modulightor, a company that Rudolph co-founded to sell light fixtures. The main elevation of the facade is to the north, while the rear elevation faces south; both elevations are composed of overlapping, interlocking rectangles made of white I-beams. There is a rooftop deck with gray tiles, in addition to protruding balconies in the rear. The building holds Modulightor's store in the basement and on the first floor, while the remaining spaces house the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture. The third story of the Wagner duplex includes a kitchen and two living rooms, while the fourth story has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The duplex's interconnected rooms are decorated in a white palette, with design details such as floating houseplants, cantilevered staircases, banisters, and bookshelves.
The building is named for the Modulightor lighting company, which Wagner and Rudolph had cofounded in 1976. Rudolph and Wagner acquired the building in February 1989 and Rudolph worked on it over the next four years. The third- and fourth-floor duplex unit originally comprised two apartments, which were rented in 1996 to MTV founder John Lack and his daughter. After the Lacks moved out in 1999, Wagner moved into the building in the early 2000s. The architect Donald Luckenbill subsequently combined the two duplex apartments; these were used by the Paul Rudolph Foundation. Squeo drew up plans for the fifth and sixth stories starting in 2007, and these stories were opened to the public in 2016. After the Paul Rudolph Foundation was evicted in 2014, the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation (later Institute for Modern Architecture) moved into the building, acquiring it in 2023.
Site The Modulightor Building is at 246 East 58th Street in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The rectangular land lot covers approximately , with a frontage of on 58th Street and a depth of . Immediately outside the building is a sidewalk divided into square panels of gray slate, as well as a planting bed by the curb. The building is one block south of the Queensboro Bridge's Manhattan terminal and the Roosevelt Island Tramway plaza. Nearby buildings include 252 East 57th Street one block to the south and 311 and 313 East 58th Street to the east.
Paul Rudolph, the Modulightor Building's developer, had bought the building specifically because of the presence of several design showrooms in the area, which had been unofficially known as the Design District since at least the 1960s. The block had once contained many row houses, which had been developed starting in the mid-19th century and were commonplace along 58th Street and other west-east streets. These row houses had included an Italianate brownstone at 246 East 58th Street, which was three stories high and dated to the 1850s or 1860s. This rowhouse had been divided into 15 rooms by 1941 and was converted into a commercial building by 1966, with two-story annexes both in the rear and at the front. Characterized as a "strikingly new and modern building", the structure first housed the Ellsworth & Goldie gallery, then housed fabric retail stores until the 1980s.
Architecture Originally constructed as a four-story structure, the Modulightor Building has been used for commercial and residential purposes, later housing a gallery on its top floors. The original part of the building was erected from 1989 to 1994 to designs by Paul Rudolph. The Modulightor Building was one of the last buildings that Rudolph ever completed in Manhattan; unlike his other projects, it was not particularly well known. Rudolph designed only two other residential structures in Manhattan: his own residence at 23 Beekman Place and the Halston townhouse at 101 East 63rd Street. Mark Squeo, who had collaborated with Rudolph in the 1990s, designed the upper stories, which were built in the 2010s.
Rudolph experimented with various features in the design of the Modulightor Building, using details popularized by such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Even though Rudolph had completed the building not long before he died, he used it to test out various theories regarding the use and configuration of space. Rudolph's colleague Ernst Wagner, a Swiss man who had been a longtime resident of the building, said that the design reflected the fact that the Modulightor Building was "very much a building Paul built for himself". Curbed similarly wrote in 2026 that the building had functioned as Rudolph's architectural laboratory.
Exterior
Facade The main elevation of the facade is to the north, along 58th Street. Both the main facade and the rear facade are composed of overlapping, interlocking rectangles made of white I-beams. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the interlocking nature of the beams gives the facade a quality similar to a jigsaw puzzle, contrasting with the row houses that adjoining it. The western facade is a white party wall with narrow windows on the fifth and sixth stories, while the eastern facade has narrow windows on the fourth story, fifth story, and rooftop deck.
The main elevation is about deep and includes concrete panels for structural support. The I-beams were manufactured to three different widths. The vertical beams are largely deep, except for those at the far western and eastern edges, which are deep; the horizontal beams are deep. Though the rectangles generally contain glass windows, a few openings on the facade are filled with concrete blocks, and other openings contain wooden doors. There is an entrance on the left (east) side of the facade, which is screened by a gate with vertical metal bars; the left wall of this entrance has a lattice with plants, while the door itself is topped by a planting box. Another entrance on the right (west) side of the facade leads to a showroom at the ground level, with a recessed glass door and a marble pavement. The center of the first-floor facade has a tripartite display window.
The rear elevation has fewer I-beams than the main elevation, although the windows are larger. The lowest two stories have not been modified since the 1960s. These stories span the lot's width; there is a skylight above the second floor. The third floor, designed by Rudolph, has a steel-grated wood deck spanning the lot's width, with mechanical equipment on one end and a hot tub on the opposite end. There is a door at the deck's eastern end, which ascends to a door with a transom window above it; a greenhouse is located to the west of this door. The fourth floor of the facade was also designed by Rudolph. The two stories above, which were built during Squeo's redesign, contain four metal balconies of different sizes.
Roof There is a rooftop deck with gray tiles, which is surrounded by glass-and-metal parapets to the north and south. The rooftop deck connects with one of the balconies in the rear, and a skylight is raised above the western part of the roof deck. The front portion of the rooftop deck has a glass-walled elevator foyer with glass doors, which adjoins an enclosed staircase descending to the sixth floor. There is a second, outdoor staircase to the sixth floor at the center of the deck; its balustrade is a metal grid with a handrail, and the stair risers have gaps between them.
Interior As designed, the showroom of the Modulightor company was intended to be on the first floor, while the story immediately above was to be Rudolph's office. The third and fourth floors were to contain two duplex apartments (later combined into one). Another apartment was added on the fifth and sixth floors in the 2010s; these were part of Rudolph's original plans but not completed during his lifetime. The Modulightor shop is connected to the upper floors via a stair in the rear.
, the building holds Modulightor's fabrication center in the basement and on the first floor. The store sells lighting fixtures, including lamps similar to those at Rudolph's house on 23 Beekman Place. The remaining spaces house the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, which hosts events and exhibits at the apartment. The institute gives periodic tours of the duplex, opening it to the public twice monthly. The Rudolph Foundation, which occupied the building until 2014, also hosted tours and rented out the space for events. The building's interior is the only Rudolph–designed space in New York City that is ordinarily open to the public.
Third- and fourth-floor duplex
The third- and fourth-floor duplex apartment spans about . It has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, two balconies between the floors, two living rooms, and a kitchen divided into northern and southern sections. The duplex is decorated in a white palette throughout, with white built-in furniture. The rooms are interconnected spaces that blend into one another, which according to the LPC were intended to make the spaces appear larger than they actually were. They have decorations such as floating houseplants, cantilevered stairs, banisters, and bookshelves. The staircases, balconies, and glass walls in these rooms may be inspired by the designs of the Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau model home and Unité d'Habitation of Berlin, both designed by Le Corbusier. There are also decorations such as metal beams and grated sections of floor, in addition to lighting made by Modulightor. When Wagner and Rudolph occupied the building, the duplex was decorated with objects such as African sculptures, Japanese figurines, Turkish machine parts, boomerangs, shoe forms, cigar molds, gold chargers, and masks.
On the third floor, the northern and southern living rooms are connected by a north–south hallway along the eastern side of the house, which leads to an elevator and the main stairway to the ground. The L-shaped north living room wraps around a bathroom to the east., diagram. The southern wall of the north living room has a door to the hallway, while the eastern wall has a metal fireplace mantel and wooden cabinets. There are shelves and a sofa on the western wall (adjoining a staircase to the northern balcony), while the northern wall adjoins a terrace. On the western side of the house, the two sections of the kitchen are separated by a wall with a door. The northern half includes a refrigerator and oven, while the southern half contains a stovetop, fume hood, and sinks; both sections include shelves, cabinets, and white counters. The south living room is also L-shaped, wrapping around a bathroom to the east. Within the south living room, another staircase near the kitchen ascends to the southern balcony. The eastern wall has a metal fireplace mantel and wooden cabinets; the southeast corner has a window and desk; and the western side has a steel beam above two sofas. Along the southern wall of the south living room is an alcove, which has a double-height ceiling and a door leading to the rear garden.